Jean Charles De Menezes: Media And Police ‘Doctored’ Image

CLARE Montgomery QC, prosecuting, told the court that the picture of Jean Charles De Menzes and Hussain Osman had been altered “by either stretching or resizing so the face ceases to have its correct proportions” in order to make the pair seem more alike.

Having worked with the images that are available, there do seem to be lightness, saturation, (possibly) contrast and minor angle of photograph issues.

Then there is the cropping of the photograph.

The media seem to be showing a cropped image of the police handout which does show a misalignment of the top of the heads.

If I hadn’t discovered the police handout, I would have said the image was judiciously cropped to obscure this misalignment but it wasn’t – the media have done this.

Do remember that I can only go on what I have seen published. Perhaps there are better resolution images in the hands of the experts but the lightness and contrast issues could account for the loss of detail on the De Menezes ’side’.

It does surprise me that the police handout does seem to be more degraded than images I can find on the net but I don’t know if these are the exact source photos used in the composite but I believe they could well be.

The big BUT is, though, why align the left hand side of someone’s face with the right hand
side of someone else’s ?

Faces aren’t symmetrical. If you are comparing likenesses, you compare the whole to the whole, not manufacture a hybrid.

And, what if you were to compare the other side of the faces as I have done.

Now, I haven’t aligned faces. What I’ve done is look at what I can best approximate are the mirror images of the faces. i.e. hide the sides that were show side by side and reveal the opposites in the same alignment as the mirror images were.

Please note that I created my own composite of the Met Police one (which has greater contrast) and that is the one on the top.

The original Met Police image is below that one. There is a slight difference in face size which does give a slightly more obvious misalignment at the top of the head (probabbly exacerbated by the higher contrast) but the width of the faces and alignment of the facial features do seem to give a different impression.

Update – I have amende my own images and adjusted the size of Mr De Menezes head (in both top images and in proportion) to reduce this alignment.

Further update – I have now reduced brightness, contrast and saturation (on both sides of my own composite) as best I can to mimic that of the original and placed the opposite (reduced contrast etc.) to the right of the original. My own (reduce contrast etc.) appears below the original.

Even if they were twins – you can’t just shoot someone, who at that point has done nothing except pick up a copy of the Metro and get on a train, without even having a suspicious bag or bulky clothing.

its unfortunate sure but look at it this way if he had gone home when his visa expired like he should have it never would have happened. so the moral of the story children is dont overstay your welcome

Dagmar Almeida

Hey Stan, what an ‘enlightened’ person you must be uttering such insensitive nonsense as “Don’t forget his visa had expired”.

What exactly has an expired visa (did it really expire? were you given a copy of Jean Charles’s passport and see the evidence or did you just hear the ‘official version’ – remember Sir Ian’s lies on national TV the day after the execution – so much for official versions) to do with Jean Charles’s horrific (and totally AVOIDABLE) end?

In our brave new Britain you seem to be of the opinon that it is OK to pump 7 dum dum bullets in someone’s head because his visa has expired (or not, as the current inquest may yet show).

Isn’t it fortunate that such an arbitrary aberration – executing foreigners whose visa has expired – was not in force when your ancestors and mine were busy pillaging, raping, maiming and murdering whoever objected to foreign intruders invading and taking over their home land by force.

Do you think our ancestors’ passport display a valid stamp as they set out on their pillaging spree across the whole planet to realise the ‘great’ (sic) British Empire
– you know, the one where the sun never sets?

I think not.
Dagmar Almeida
London SW9
(just round the corner from where the Met unceremoniously pumped 7 dum dum bullets inside Jean Charles’s head without giving him the chance to renew his visa).

Or do you suppose your ancestors and mine had a valid stamp on their passports
when they

lee anthony broadhurst

my personal opinion and experience, of the police force i believe and i’m sure many people would agree is that the armed police and the goverment believe they have the power to shoot and kill innocent citizens on our streets and get away with it.
my main point is THAT THEY ARE TRIGGER HAPPY WHICH MAKES THEM JUST AS BAD AS THE TERRORISTS OR IF NOT WORST .
which means no one is safe on our streets even from the police.
the officers who shot and killed jean charles de menezes at point blank range
(7 TIMES) should be put on trial for such a barbaric murder.